Five people have been found alive in the rubble of an Italian hotel, rescuers said, two days after an avalanche tore through the ski resort.
“We found five people alive. We’re pulling them out. Send us a helicopter,” a rescuer said over firefighters’ radio.
About 30 people were trapped inside the luxury Hotel Rigopiano when the avalanche hit on Wednesday afternoon, with two people initially surviving the devastation and reporting the emergency.
The Ansa news agency said the number of possible new survivors was six and that firefighting crews were in touch with them, but that they were still under the rubble. Helicopters were reportedly on the way to the site to aid the evacuation.
Search and rescue teams maintained the hope of finding survivors of an avalanche that buried the hotel under up to 15ft of snow.
“We are hoping that the ceiling collapsed partially in some places and that someone remained underneath,” rescuer Lorenzo Gagliardi said.
Rescuers were using shovels to dig into the tons of snow and debris. Two bodies were recovered and RAI state TV reported two more had been located but not yet removed.
The first rescue teams had arrived on skis early on Thursday, and firefighters were dropped in by helicopter. Snowmobiles were also being used.
Two people escaped the devastation at the Hotel Rigopiano in the quake-stricken mountains of central Italy and called for help, but it took hours for first responders to arrive at the remote hotel, about 30 miles from the coastal city of Pescara, at an altitude of about 3,940ft.
It was not clear if the quakes triggered the avalanche, but emergency responders said the force of the massive snow slide collapsed a wing of the hotel that faced the mountain and rotated another off its foundation, pushing it downhill.
“The situation is catastrophic,” said Marshall Lorenzo Gagliardi of the Alpine rescue service, who was among the first at the scene. “The mountain-facing side is completely destroyed and buried by snow: the kitchen, hotel rooms, hall.”
One of the survivors reported that the guests had all checked out and were waiting for the road to be cleared to leave. The snow plough scheduled for mid-afternoon never arrived, and the avalanche hit at around 5.30pm on Wednesday.
Prosecutors have opened a manslaughter investigation in the tragedy, and among the hypotheses being pursued is whether the avalanche threat was not taken seriously enough, according to Italian media.
